by employment in the state system, now of some standing in both France and Prussia. Hence it is that M. Willm, who holds the situation of an inspector of schools in the department of the Rhine, produced in 1842 a treatise at once philosophical and practical, presenting, in wonderful condensation, such a view of the whole matter, as may be a guide to the most ignorant. Here is everything educational-from great principles deduced from the constitution of our being, down to the humblest details of the organization of a school. It is-we say emphatically and advisedly-the book for all who would wish to know what education ought to be, and may be in these better days. Every legislator, every journalist, every teacher, every enlightened person taking an interest in the subject, should possess this very comprehensive treatise.

The work is systematically arranged, without becoming thereby in the least formal. The first part states the Principle and Object of Education in General, coming finally, after the discussion of every dogma on the subject, to this-to develope the germs of mental power and disposition planted in us by the Creator, fitting men at once for their places in society, and their parts in the divine city which extends its shelter over all people, which embraces all time, and even reaches beyond it.' 'It should summon to light,' says our author, 'every germ of reason, of virtue, of greatness, which concur in constituting our true humanity, and sufficiently develope them to secure their victory over all opposing dispositions; so that, the thorns and necessities of life being inadequate to extinguish them, or give them a false direction, they may, on the contrary, be augmented and fortified by an unintermitting progress.

'Man thirsts naturally after the good, the true, the beautiful, and the infinite; whence arise the moral sentiments, the love of truth and knowledge, the feeling of the beautiful, and the sentiment of religion; which, as they are developed, become the moral conscience, knowledge of the system of the universe, taste or susceptibility in regarding beauty, and religion. In these, by man's rational nature-that nature which is especially human, which distinguishes its possessor from the animals, and raises him above them, and by suitably nourishing these high dispositions, and inspiring man with the consciousness of what he may and ought to be -education places him in a condition to govern his animal nature, and make it subserve the grand ends of his existence. To be complete, then, education ought to be at once moral, intellectual, æsthetic, and religious; and since man is nothing without society, but, on the contrary, social by his nature, his education ought, at the same time, to be social and national. . . . Moral education, having for its object to inspire the sense and habit of charity, love of the good, the just, and the honourable; intellectual education, unfolding the universal order, nourishing the love of the true, and raising our mind by the spectacle of the wonders of external existence; asthetic education, nourishing and guiding our sentiments of propriety, of the beautiful and the sublime; religious education, unfolding the idea of the Infinite, nourishing our fear of God, and faith in His providence; and lastly, social and national education, endeavouring to form the future citizen, to develope sociality, and our national sentiments. Each of these divisions demands a special kind of instruction and analogous exercises; there must be a moral instruction, an instruction wholly intellectual, an aesthetic instruction, a religious instruction, and a social and national instruction. These diverse kinds of instruction sup

...

pose that wholly elementary teaching included in the programme of the primary schools; and they are afterwards completed by that other special instruction required for each individual in consideration of his special vocation or destiny. Thus education and instruction ought at first to be purely human, then national, then special and professional.'

This will show the wide principles on which M. Willm proceeds. The second part contains ample details of means and modes; the third is devoted to the means of training teachers. We cannot say we assent to every arrangement dictated by our author; but they bear, generally, the stamp of experience and sagacity, and, in a country unprovided with a national system, must be of vast utility. It would be tiresome to enter into the minor details of school-forming and teaching; but as a specimen of this part of the work, we may present M. Willm's section on social and national education. Let Britain be substituted for France, and it entirely answers our own case.

'The design,' he says, 'of this branch of education is to prepare children one day to become useful members of society, citizens, friendly to order, obedient to the laws, and devoted to their country. Inasmuch as these duties are imposed upon us by conscience, and consecrated by religion itself, social is included in moral education; but something more remains to be done than is accomplished by this. There is particular knowledge to be imparted on this subject, habits to be formed, and sentiments to be awakened, developed, and directed.

There is something too confined in the idea usually attached to the word patriotism. He alone is not the true patriot who, passionately loving his country, is ready to make any sacrifice for it, to shed his blood for its prosperity, its glory, and its liberty; but he also is a patriot who, knowing that order is the first condition of public liberty and happiness, and that order supposes obedience to the laws, religiously observes them, even although they may clash with his private interests or personal opinions. Socrates, refusing to save himself by flight from an unjust sentence, and carrying his respect for the laws of his country so far as to die for them, proved himself to be a greater patriot even than when he merited the reward of valour in the field of battle. The just and wise man, according to him, is he who faithfully observes the laws of man and of God.

"This patriotism for law is the more meritorious that it is unostentatious; it is also on that account more difficult. To incline children to it, by making them understand its necessity, is the first duty of social education. There are many persons who, through ignorance, look upon taxes, especially on indirect ones, as a heavy, unjust burden, imposed by power rather than by necessity, and endeavour to evade them as much as possible. The people must be enlightened on this subject in the schools, and must be made to understand that tribute, including that of blood, is required for the life of the state.

'Civil and political probity is much more rare than private probity, even in the middling and higher classes of society. Historians relate that formerly, in some free towns of Germany, each man was left to tax himself according to his means, and to deposit, with no other witness than his own conscience, his voluntary gifts in the public chest; and they add, that the state in general profited by this method of collecting the taxes. We are very far removed from these simple and primitive manners. To deceive the public

and enlightened Church of England. The greatest of the reformed churches, it ought to be the most generous; and it requires only a few amendments in its practice to place it in the loftiest position yet ever held by any church-apart, namely, from all sectarianism and as the acknowledged head of every great movement of civilisation.'

EVERY DAY ENTOMOLOGY.

THE WASP FAMILY.

POETS and essayists are in the habit of likening the wasp to fops of another genus, and vice versa. This questionable sort of reputation these insects must ascribe to their splendid caparison, and to their apparently useless position in the world. The simile is more true in a more curious respect; for there are annual reunions of these glittering creatures, just as in the fashionable world-a fashionable season of a few months, and then all disperse again. The economy of the wasp family possesses considerable interest, and deserves far more attention than in our hostile state of feelings towards the race we are readily disposed to believe. It is only necessary that the real character of the tribe should be known, to remove at least the blot of laziness from it. That they are a set of bold, insolent, daring robbers, no one can deny; yet give them their due, and we shall admit that there is much in their habits deserving our admiration, and that even their audacious thefts have their redeeming points.

The general aspect of the Vespida, or wasps, is sufficiently familiar to obviate the necessity of description. Their black and gold-painted bodies, their powerful mandibles, formidable stings, and their surface destitute of hairs, are present to the eye at the very mention of the word. The society consists of males, females, and neuters, each having their appropriate functions; but the males, on the whole, leading the quietest and least arduous lives. The females are the hardworking foundresses of the colony, and the neuters are wasps of allwork-robbing, fighting, defending, nursing, and building indifferently, and by turns. Their history commences most conveniently for our purposes in the spring. At the conclusion of the preceding summer, the males, after pairing, all died, and there remained but a few females behind of all the busy ranks which crowded the vespiary. These are awakened by the return of spring. The solitary wasp finds herself immediately summoned to active duties. She has to construct the carcase, and to excavate the earthwork, for her future people and city. Serious as is the task, she has to effect it all alone; not a single companion to cheer her hours of incessant toil, or to lighten her labour by a single load! Her energies are equal to the undertaking: she is to be seen buzzing about in the sunny mornings, looking out for a site. It is soon found: it is some dry, warm bank; and here she sets to her work. She perforates it, and forms a long circuitous tunnel, at the extremity of which she digs out a vault of considerable dimensions. This task is performed in no careless or slovenly manner; although every particle of rubbish which the little excavator tears from the walls of her cavern must be carried in her jaws, she does not leave it at the entrance, but voluntarily entails upon herself the vast additional labour of casting it away to some distance. Her design in so doing appears to be principally to avoid the risk of her cell being discovered by a heap of rubbish at the foot of the bank. After the labour of excavation is ended, the walls are to be plastered, and to this fresh duty she at once addresses herself. Surely every person has seen the nest of the wasp, and wondered at its exquisite and delicate architecture of celled paper? Behold the architect! The nest is really made of paper: it was for some time a puzzle to our philosophers. Reaumur appears first to have detected the wasp in the very act of this manufacture. He beheld her alight on a deal window-frame; and watching, saw her tear a bundle of

delicate hair-like fibres, about an inch in length, from it, bruising the woody fibre with her mandibles until it became like a fine lint. This is the material from which the papyraceous plaster is to be prepared. Flying away with it to her abode, it is there made into a proper consistence by the addition of her tenacious saliva; and when this part of the process is complete, it forms a fine, smooth, adhesive paste, precisely analogous to the product of our cumbrous and costly mechanism papier maché. Rolling it into a sort of pellet, she conveys it to the summit of the dome, plasters it on the wall, and spreads it out, by means of her legs and jaws, into a very thin lamina, which is veritable paper. Leaf after leaf must be added, until the whole cavity is thus papered or plastered over, and not with one coat alone; generally the insect lays down fifteen or sixteen, leaving spaces between each layer for the advantages of inward lightness and strength to her ceiling. Her labours do not end here. She has built the walls of the city, it remains for her to commence the edifices, and supply the population. She builds a terrace of hexagonal cells, of marvellous exactness, and suspends it by paper pillars from the roof of her texture. These terraces emulate in elegance and artistic skill, and far surpass in utility, the famous hanging gardens and terraces of the renowned city of old. A few hundred cells are thus constructed, and at length an interval of comparative repose awaits the labourer, while she proceeds to fulfil her more proper duties as a parent. Single-handed, she has laid the foundation of the vesp-polis, and has marked out the general design of its future buildings; but she must have further assistance before the city will be complete. The walls, at present bare and desolate, the palace empty and still, are soon to resound with the hum of life, and with the busy labours of a new generation. In the cells the insect deposits her ova, gluing them to the walls by an adhesive substance. These are soon hatched, they become larvæ, and are for some time entirely dependent upon their parent's exertions for their supply of food. She has to forage for this numerous and voracious progeny, and runs about from cell to cell with the utmost solicitude, while the grubs put forth their mouths, and are fed by her just as the callow brood' of a bird is fed. Most pleasing is it to observe the anxious mother keeping watch over her offspring, and apparently many a needless time popping her head into their snug cots, as if to see how they do, and to give a mouthful of food now and then to some tender young larva not yet big enough to put its head out to be fed! A few weeks slip by-a great change has come over the vespiary; it is replete with life; hundreds of workers have been born in the interim, and are now labouring might and main, with the empress at their head, to extend the buildings, and enlarge the city. When complete, a vespiary has been calculated to contain about fifteen or sixteen thousand cells, each of which is thrice a cradle; and therefore, in a single season, each nest will probably be the birthplace of full thirty thousand wasps.

Such is the birth and development of this insect colony-a lesson to states, and nations, and individuals, of the certain results of indomitable perseverance. Let us trace out its government and destinies. The empress-the protoplast of this interesting microcosm, the foundress of this bustling republic-is an exaggerated type of the duties of its female members. These are produced in comparatively small numbers; they perform the proper duties of wives and mothers; they stay at home, feed the children, and attend to the nurseries; they mostly perish before winter; but a few, more hardy than their fellows, endure its cold, and become the perpetuators of the race in the ensuing spring. The males, according to the younger Huber, are far more industrious than the male bees, or drones, but are less active by far than the neuters, or workingwasps. They have the peaceful occupation of scavengering the streets: they sweep the floors of the terraces and avenues, and diligently carry off every particle of rubbish. They also undertake the funerals of any

deceased companions, and speedily cast the dead bodies out of the vespiary. On the whole, they are useful members of the community; and they probably owe their permission to live to their diligence. The 'workers' are the most interesting class: they are smaller in size than either male or female wasps, but are wonderfully energetic, and indefatigably laborious. Some are builders and repairers of the breach; they receive a commission to make excursions for building materials; and returning home with their bundles of lint, set themselves to the repairs and extension of the city. Others are the commissariats: the issues of life at home are intimately connected with their expeditions. They roam over fields and meadows, frequently catching flies and weaker insects, and carrying the game home often with no inconsiderable difficulty. Dr Darwin says he once beheld a curious act of a wasp: it had caught a large fly, and in rising with it into the air, the breeze caught its wings, and nearly wrenched it from the wasp's clutches. The insect immediately alighted, and deliberately sawed off the wings of its victim, when it was able to carry it in safety away. There was a something nobler than instinct in this action; nor is it by any means an isolated example of insect sagacity. Others seek our orchards, select the ripest, sweetest fruits, suck their juices, and convey home the luscious treasure, of which but a small portion is for themselves. These foragers will even enter and rob beehives. Those that tarry at home, in every instance share the spoil. Our grocery stores, pastrycooks, and butchers' stalls, are equally attractive to the forager-wasps. Surely it is some palliation of the robbery to remember the claims of hungry kinsfolk, friends, and acquaintance, and little ones at home? There is no squabbling at their orderly meal-times; no fighting for the 'lion's share;' each expectant insect receives its due portion, and is content therewith. I have seen,' writes the fascinating observer Reaumur, 'a worker, after returning home with spoil, on entering the nest, quietly perch at the top and protrude a clear drop of fluid from its mouth. Several wasps drank together from this crystal drop until it was all swallowed; then the worker would cause a second, and sometimes a third drop to exude, the contents of which were distributed in peace to other wasps.' If we have any young readers of these entomological sketches, here is a lesson for them!

The mode of government is republican: there is no recognised head, as with the bees; yet an amount of even military discipline, and the utmost order, are to be found among the subjects. The good of the commonwealth seems to be the prevailing object of each insect. If the workers are building, each has its own spot, about an inch square, assigned to it, as the amount of work it is expected to execute. It was an interesting discovery of Mr Knight, that wasps also have sentinels. These are placed at the entrance of the vespiary; they run gently in and out of it, and give immediate notice of the approach of danger. To their communications alone does the community give heed; and on their giving the alarm, will issue in angry hosts to avenge the injury, and defend their home to the death. Sometimes, however, but rarely, intestine combats take place; and there are terrific duels between the workers, or between a worker and a male. This is a bad affair for the latter, as he has no sting: his fate is generally to die.

One of the most striking facts in the natural history of the Vespida is the occurrence of an annual massacre in October. Then the vespiary is indeed a scene of horrible atrocities and profuse carnage. The wasps, whose affection for their young is generally remarkably strong, seem then to be possessed with frenzied rage against them. They cease to feed their larvæ : they do worse,' angrily writes Reaumur; the mothers become implacable murderesses; they drag the helpless larvæ out of their cells, slay them, and scatter them outside the nest, strewing the very earth with their dead carcasses. There is no compunction: the massacre is universal.' pose is fulfilled by this apparent cruelty.

winter would rapidly destroy, by a far more miserable death, all that are killed on this occasion; and it is a stroke of mercy to terminate their sufferings by a blow. The early frosts destroy the murderers themselves. The scene is now, in truth, altered; the populous city has become waste, and without inhabitant,' saving some one or two females, which spend the winter in the depths of the vespiary. The complicated galleries, cells, and hanging terraces, and the entire framework of the nest, are for ever vacated when the female leaves them in the spring; and this exquisite specimen of insect architecture is abandoned to the destroying influences of time and accident. These interesting features of the history of the Vespidæ are full of subject-matter for our meditation and admiration, indicating, so clearly as they do, that the Hand that made them is divine; yet all these marvellous sagacities, contrivances, governing principles, present us with but dim and broken reflections of the far-seeing Wisdom that created all things, and for whose pleasure they are and were created.' A few more particulars will make the history of this family a little more complete. The preceding sketch has dealt only with the common wasp, Vespa vulgaris. The mason-wasp is a solitary insect, and builds its nest in sand and brick, being able, by means of its strong mandibles, to break off pieces of brick with ease, and to burrow to a considerable depth in its substance. It has the peculiarity of storing up ten or twelve green larvæ, as food for its own, and resorts to a curious contrivance to prevent them from moving out of its reach. The hornet, Vespa crabo, selects for its habitation commonly some decayed, hollow trunk, where, building its nest, it forms a tortuous gallery of entrance. The American farmers are said to make use of these nests to destroy domestic flies, hanging them up in their rooms, where they do not molest the family, but fall entirely upon the flies. Another species, the Ves espa Britannica, forms a curious oval nest, sometimes to be seen hanging from the branches of trees. Others form elegant nests, like half-open flowers, with a platform of cells at the bottom. A foreign species constructs a beautiful nest, of a substance identical with the very finest card-board, suspending it, like a watch from a guard-chain, by a ring at the extremity of the bough, out of the reach of monkeys. Sometimes these nests grow to an enormous size. Mr Westwood states that the Zoological Society has one six feet long. A South American species of wasp imitates the bee, and is a collector of honey.

Bold as are the Vespidæ, great as is their fecundity, they are mercifully kept in check. The ichneumon is their ferocious foe; in the West Indian islands they are the victims of a parasitic plant, which vegetates in their interior; man leagues his forces against them; and nature itself, in a deluging season or severe winter, destroys thousands, and prevents the plague becoming greater than we are able to bear.

PAPA'S TRIAL.

place, Jack Smart by name. A jury, composed of a top class from an infant school, was duly impannelled. Tom Foxey, in opening the proceedings, observed that the gentleman brought before them that day was not accused of any specific crime, unless the fact of his belonging to the tyrant class of papas might be so considered; in which case his guilt must be great indeed, seeing that he was an unusually extensive papa, in as far as he had ten children-six boys, and four girls. The object was to subject him to a trial of qualifications or pretensions, to ascertain if he were, from his own conduct and character, worthy to hold that absolute rule over certain of his fellow-creatures, usually called his family, which he claimed to do on the grounds of old use and wont. The time had been when an inquiry of this kind would have been held as an unnatural rebellion; but such times were now passed away. Everything was now questioned, everything had to stand and give an account of itself, and why should not the despotism of the paternal rule do the same? He did not believe there was any partiality shown in the selection of a subject for trial. The gentleman in the dock was a passable enough man in the world-a very fair specimen, he would say, of his class. He would now proceed, however, to bring forward evidence to display the actual lineaments of his character; after which it would be for the jury to say whether he was entitled to hold any kind of rule over his children or not.

Jack, the prisoner's eldest son, being sworn, deponed that his Papa was an exceedingly ignorant man, having entirely neglected his own learning in youth; yet he had all his children at study for twelve hours a-day, and punished them for failure in their lessons with even more severity than their masters. He scarcely ever went to church; but he caused all the young people to go with their mamma twice every Sunday, and rigorously enjoined the parson to keep them well up in the catechism; though he scarcely knew one question from another himself. He generally thrashed at the rate of two children a-day on an average, the offences being usually of the slightest kind-such as laughing at the governess's painted eyebrows, or wheedling something nice from the cook, to make up for the ultra plain fare which was assigned to them. Had heard it said that Papa once sold a horse as sound, which turned out to be broken in wind; the fact being the more deeply impressed on his memory, as that day Papa had whipped Bill within an inch of his life for denying that he had picked up a fallen apple in the garden. Papa was observed to be always most cross when he had been making most merry. For example, if he had been at an unusually boisterous party, where a vast quantity of wine was drunk, he was sure to come home with a very stern and defying countenance, and almost for certain would fall a-scolding both mamma and the chil

dren.

Tag, a tyger, lately in the employment of the prisoner, stated that master was liable to be irritated by trifles; such as a spot of dirt left on the outside of the carriage, or the emptiness of cruets at table. On these occasions he never failed to blow up missus, and then was sulky for all the rest of the evening. Master had been engaged in two duels, and was never out of lawsuits, notwithstanding which, he beat his sons if they ever fought with each other. (Sensation in the court.) Had been obliged to leave the place, in consequence of suffering so much from master's temper.

Henry Baddely, Esq. knew the prisoner; had been his club acquaintance for many years; sometimes had transactions in business with him. Thought him much like other men-that is, he liked a good dinner, and plenty of wine after it; could not do without having

his own way at home; would take all fair advantages in business-that is, advantages not forbidden by the law or the code of honour; paid his debts when he could; was anxious to take all the pleasure out of life that was to be had, and thought the opera the finest thing in the world. Had once heard him speak of the duties of life, referring particularly to the propriety of his children never doing anything contrary to his will. Here the case was closed for the prosecution. Evidence on the defensive was then brought forward by the prisoner's counsel. And first his wife was called; whereupon Mr Foxey objected for the prosecution, that so near a connexion might not be adduced on that side, seeing that there was such a natural prepossession in such relations in behalf of any party under accusation. Mr Smart agreed to refer the point to the learned judge, who instantly decided that the lady might be heard, remarking, that the objection was founded entirely on a mistake; in fact, common observation showed that no one was ever found so extremely candid about one's faults as one's nearest relations.

The lady had been married twenty years-had some idea that her marriage had been a happy one, but could not be sure, in as far as she did not know what constituted a happy marriage. Her husband pursued his own course, and was much from home with his friends, while she attended to domestic matters. He seldom was in bad humour oftener than thrice a-week; in this state, sometimes scolded, sometimes sulked, oftenest the latter. He never interfered about the children, except to thrash them when they did anything displeasing to him. Did not think him a bad father, because their neighbour Damson had once broken his boy's arm in a passion, which her husband had never done. Believed that his grand motive for being severe with the boys, was his having been an exceedingly wild boy himself-he felt, from his own case, that one never could be too strict with young people. Did not know how it was, but the boys did not become any better under their father's discipline. He was aware they did not like him, but always thought it was because he did not chastise them enough. Things, therefore, always seemed to be getting worse. Was often sorry for the boys, but believed it to be all for their good, having been assured by her husband that there was something of the devil at the bottom of all boys' characters, and which required to be thrashed out of them.

The mother of the prisoner was also examined on this side. She knew that her son had been wild in youth, and was anxious that his boys should be better than himself. Thought, as their mother was chiefly concerned in their upbringing, there might be other causes than her son's conduct for their not giving satisfaction. Feared they were screened too much when they did wrong. It was impossible for any father, who only saw his children two or three times a-week, to be responsible for them, beyond punishing what he found positively wrong.

The evidence for the prisoner being now closed, Mr Foxey said it was unnecessary for him to occupy the court with long speeches. They had heard how the accused conducted himself in general. Constantly occupied with the pursuit of wealth or his own selfish pleasures, he had no time, as it did not appear he had any wish, to train his children aright. For all their conse quent shortcomings, real or supposed, he could only lay on the lash. Was this justice to Young Ireland, or Young England or Scotland either? At the same time, every offence for which he punished his children, he was in the habit of continually committing in an aggravated form himself, thus adding hypocrisy to his other guilt. In short, it fully appeared, even from the evidence in his own defence, that he was a very bad person, who only could be called a Papa by courtesy. Mr Foxey was therefore fully of opinion that he had no true title to a sovereign rule over the young and rising members of society who happened to have been born in his household; and he craved judgment accordingly.